


and that is all in life i ever do

by philthestone



Series: hark the bluebells [3]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: F/M, I Love Happy Endings Dont You, ana maria i thought you'd never ask!!!!!, anyways [amy santiago voice] "come on anne" is a big theme, for sennen, in this fic. i hope u like happy endings as much as i do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 15:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10620078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone
Summary: “I was wondering if we might talk to Auvergne about the trade routes,” she says, “and I was also wondering if perhaps you would like to get married.”There is a small pause. The candlelight flickers.“Tomorrow?” says Aramis, and Anne turns back to look at him right as he fully understands what she just said, which is either blessed or unfortunate, Anne’s not sure, because his eyes widen to an even more comical degree than they did before and he seems to have difficulty closing his mouth after the “tomorrow”, which had a crack at the end.





	

**Author's Note:**

> the document title for this fic was "ANA MARIA I THOUGHT UD NEVER ASK" all in caps just like that and it's all sennen's fault. that sentence, in fact, is copyright sennen.
> 
> i love happy endings you guys. set in between athos and sylvie leaving and The Voiceover Scene, aka that bit where anne and aramis make out in the gardens after winning at life TO THE DULCET TONES OF ATHOS'S NARRATING TO US ABOUT HAPPINESS
> 
> thanks @ the bbc i really owe u my life
> 
> anyways, reviews are anne's happiness tbh

Anne has always liked the candlelight. 

It is yellow, and buttery, and warm in so many ways, and perhaps there has always been a part of her that has gravitated towards warmth. Even as a child, she would watch in fascination at the way the lights danced across the wall of the nursery when her governess moved, candle in hand, scolding them for refusing to go to sleep. She'd always thought that maybe, if she reached out and traced the wall with her little fingers, she might feel the candles' warmth lick at her hand. A fanciful thought, no doubt, borne from the mind of a little girl whose dearest friends were her siblings and whose closest companions were the rosebushes in the gardens, who had not yet been forced into the confines of womanhood. Her fancies were not unique to her, though, Anne remembers; her sister Maria shied away from candles, because they threw shadows on walls and she was sure, in her nine years of age, that bad things lurked in those shadows.

Anne has become well-acquainted with the bad things in the shadows, over the years, but her love for the candlelight has not changed. Nor has her love for warmth, which she is feeling now, sat as comfortably as one can be this late at night over the desk in the first minister’s office, pouring over taxation documents. She has not seen Maria in a very long while, and her heart aches for her sister’s smile, but she thinks that if she were to see her little sister again she might tell her that candlelight now marks the evening, and the evening means tucking little Louis to bed with a soft kiss to the forehead, and ridding herself of heavy, ceremonial dresses, and no longer having to smile at people she does not particularly like.

And evenings mean that she is allowed to be alone with Aramis, pouring over taxation documents. 

In the small hours of the night. 

It is not quite bliss, but if her sister was here right at this moment, Anne would be tired enough to not think of the consequences before telling her that it is _almost_ , Maria, _almost_ bliss. 

At any rate, thinks Anne, candlelight makes everything all the more beautiful, with its soft strokes and warm tones and gentle movement. At present, it has illuminated the space behind her first minister’s drooping head, highlighting the curling ends of his hair where it slips, undisciplined as ever, out of its little blue ribbon.

He is falling asleep, Anne thinks with a tiny, fond smile. An odd, soft feeling blossoms in her chest.

Perhaps it is that feeling that causes her to reach out and clasp his wrist, over the cluttered desk, her fingers gentle and her movements muted in the late hour.

“Aramis.”

“Hm – yes, yes, I’m –” His head has jerked up, and he is blinking rapidly, dazedly, the sleep still clinging to his lashes. “Yes, your Majesty.”

Something in her heart twinges at the _your Majesty_ , but she chooses instead to focus on the rasp of his startled voice. He really was asleep, she realizes, and has to purse her lips in order for her smile not to grow into something more foolish.

“It is,” says Anne, “incredibly late.”

Aramis blinks another three times, and then looks towards the desk.

“These documents –”

“You’re falling asleep,” says Anne, and if her voice abruptly fills with a laughter that lacks any sort of grace (it really is very late) she blames her own exhaustion, wrapping around her over three months of scrambling to pull apart and reassemble the mess her late husband had left behind him, the mess Treville had never had any chance to fix, and the mess which she refuses to pass on to her son.

(She’s sure, in a way, that she would have been able to endure these last three months without Aramis at her side – but she is not sure she would have ever wanted to.)

“I am not,” he says, now, frowning. “I’m perfectly awake.”

“Your head was drooping,” Anne tells him matter-of-factly. “And your eyelids are sliding shut again, see?”

“I was –” he flounders a bit – “contemplating. This is my contemplative face.”

Anne really does laugh now, and it rings out into the room and dances with the candlelight and something, _something_ in her chest feels inexplicably as though it is floating. It is not a feeling she is familiar with, which might contribute to her next, thoughtless words.

“I can assure you I’ve seen your contemplative face, darling, and that was not it.”

She stills, the moment the endearment is out of her mouth, and there is a suspended half-second where Aramis’s tired eyes widen and Anne holds her breath and hopes that she is allowed this small thing, too.

God has allowed her so many things, of late; her laughter, for example. She was not allowed to laugh like that before.

But then his eyes soften, and he says, 

“Perhaps I really was asleep.”

“Oh?” asks Anne, her hands curling into themselves on impulse, which is how she realizes that she is still holding his wrist. His hand twitches under hers, as though he wants to turn it over and lace their fingers, but he doesn’t, and instead leans in.

(They have laced fingers before, Anne thinks, with a little thrill catching at her heart, under the table in the council chamber when even the pompous nobility had fallen into raucous squabbling, and in small moments caught between rooms or bushes or pillars, fingers squeezing together in small gestures of comfort. Solidarity, Anne thinks. Love.

She knows that she could have endured these past months on her own, but she also knows that she is tremendously grateful she did not have to.)

“Yes,” says Aramis now, and Anne can see the tease in his tired eyes a moment before he finishes his sentence, “I think I might be dreaming, to be sitting across such a beautiful vision.”

Anne does not blush, because he is being ridiculous, and she does not smile, either, because that would make _her_ ridiculous, but Aramis does laugh when she tells him her convictions.

“I figured if you were insisting so vehemently that I was asleep I could pass off any ridiculousness for exhaustion.”

“Hmm,” hums Anne, and raises her eyebrows in what she hopes is an unimpressed manner. She isn’t sure she succeeds, though, and so to really prove her point, she averts her eyes back to the tax documents on the desk, eyebrows still raised. They are sitting very closely, she knows, were anyone to walk in just now – but then, it is so late that there is no one at all who _would_ , and Anne is willing to endure exhaustion in spades if only to cling to that small blessing. She shifts in her seat, the fabric of her dress rustling. Anne stopped wearing the heavy, draped gowns of mourning two months ago – far too early, danced the courtiers’ whispers around her heels, but for the first time she was able to ignore them almost completely. She favors blues, now, not quite dark but not quite bright either, rich colours that she thinks are pretty. She is the queen regent, mother of the king, leader of France. She is moving forward, not trapped in the past, and the hems of her skirts will not snag on the memory of the late king in matters of state. “And since you have freely admitted to your exhaustion, you will accept the queen’s request to go to bed?”

Aramis’s eyes widen a split second before Anne realizes what she has just said.

“I mean,” she begins, “I didn’t mean – that’s not – I meant to _sleep_ , as you are so very tired and were nodding off over these papers just now, I didn’t –”

Anne closes her mouth and thinks that she should probably never speak words past a certain hour of night again. She is still holding onto his wrist, she realizes, and lets go abruptly, pulling her hands into her lap. She blames the high collar of her dress for the heat around her neck and the warm hues of the candlelight for the pink on Aramis’s cheeks and, once more, Anne averts her eyes deliberately towards the tax documents on the desk. Resolutely, she reads through the first three lines, which proves to be absolutely useless because a moment later her mouth is betraying her and tugging into an unstoppable smile, shoulders shaking with laughter.

Across from her, Aramis is shaking almost as hard, his hand having come up over his mouth to smother his own laughter. 

“Oh –” gasps Anne, “oh, I am – _sorry_ , I just –”

“It’s alright,” he says, and then dissolves once more with a minute shaking of the head that Anne’s not sure is directed at her or at himself or at their general situation, here, three months after the fact, perfectly happy but also, also, _also_ –

Anne inhales a few times through her nose. She has always found that this helps one regain one's composure in times of distress.

This is not a time of distress, but she can’t seem to stop laughing, and there are _things_ to be _done_. She is a very busy person, as queen regent. She must wake up early tomorrow morning. She has to _sleep_. She can’t very well spend the rest of the evening in mortified giggles, even if her heart is swelling in her chest at the brightness of her first minister’s laugh, the particular light in his dark eyes. 

Tomorrow, they will go on with their day and she will see him smile across rooms and they will meet with dignitaries and noblemen and consult with the council about grain reserves. Louis will probably insist on telling Anne all about the peacocks he saw in the gardens, because he considers them his friends, and Anne knows, with absolute certainty, that the moment his bright little voice can be heard, Aramis’s eyes will seek him out with a fierceness that Anne feels deep in her own heart.

Anne lets out a big, heaving sigh with a sort of finality that she doesn’t really feel and lets her hands drop again into her lap. Aramis, bless him, has managed to school his face into some odd resemblance of seriousness and now clears his throat very slightly and sits up a bit straighter, looking rather unsure.

His hair is mostly undone, Anne notices, as are the top laces of his shirt – but then, those are always undone – but he looks less _worn_ , now. Still tired, to be sure, sleep still drawing its fingers over his eyelids, but a _good_ sort of tired. A easy, content sort of tired. Laughter does that to a person, she supposes, and hadn’t Louis just told her earlier that day that he is glad, because she is smiling so much more these days?

She feels quite suddenly that she hopes she can see him laugh like this every day for the rest of their lives.

It is a foolish thought -- a fanciful thought. Anne is no longer a little girl, and her closest friends are no longer her siblings, nor her dearest companions the rosebushes in the gardens.

But she thinks that if she reaches out with her slim fingers to trace the small lines around Aramis's eyes, she will feel only warmth.

“At any rate,” says Anne, a high note in her voice that she’s not sure she put there on purpose, “perhaps you should retire, and I should retire, and we can continue with these documents tomorrow.”

“Of course, your Majesty,” says Aramis, another small smile flitting up to his eyes, and despite the formal address Anne’s heart swells again because she is becoming more and more familiar with that teasing note in his voice. (More and more familiar with everything, it seems.)

She looks back down at the papers on the desk.

“I was wondering if we might talk to Auvergne about the trade routes,” she says, breezily, before she can stop herself. “And I was also wondering if perhaps you would like to get married.”

There is a small pause. The candlelight flickers.

“Tomorrow?” says Aramis, and Anne turns back to look at him right as he fully understands what she just said, which is either blessed or unfortunate, Anne’s not sure, because his eyes widen to an even more comical degree than they did before and he seems to have difficulty closing his mouth after the “tomorrow”, which had a crack at the end.

“Well,” says Anne, that high note still there. “We should probably talk to Auvergne as soon as possible.”

Aramis looks at her. Anne looks back.

“It’s alright if you don’t want to,” says Anne.

“To – talk to Auvergne?” he says, his voice sounding a bit funny.

“ _Aramis_ ,” says Anne, and nearly frowns, except then he reaches out and grabs her hands, fumbling a bit like he’s not sure what to do with them. He looks down, and Anne looks at the dancing candlelight, and wonders about how only moments ago she had decided that she really shouldn’t speak words after a certain hour of night has passed.

Oh, dear.

Aramis’s hands are very warm. Anne is still looking away when she gasps, a small hitch in her chest, at the feeling of his lips on her palm.

She looks back.

“Ana Maria,” he says, in a soft, wondering voice, and Anne feels the whole world fall into place because of it. “I thought you’d never ask.”

If his eyes are overbright in the candlelight, well, that is alright, because Anne is sure hers are as well. And if she lets her hand slip out of his and press against his cheek, that could also be attributed to the lateness of the hour, as could Anne’s small laugh, a half-gasp of relief.

(His cheek is very warm.)

“That’s good,” she says, “because I’m not sure I could have passed that off for exhaustion.”

(And then she doesn’t say anything at all, because he is kissing her and the candlelight is warm also and Anne thinks that she has been allowed so, so many beautiful things.)

(They talk to Auvergne the next day, and she wears a white dress and weaves blue ribbons into her hair, simply because she can. Louis says, “You’re a beautiful vision today, Mama,” very seriously at the breakfast table in the morning, and Anne laughs, and it rings out into the room.)

**Author's Note:**

> \- the meme [amy santiago voice] "come on, anne" is my favorite meme and thus features heavily in this fic and all others  
> \- "ana maria I thought you'd never ask" was really the impetus for me even writing this, so you all can thank @emilybrontay for sending me that line  
> \- he calls her ana okay he really does  
> \- royal people were so uncreative with their names anne's name was ana maria and her sister's name was maria ana like smh u couldn't check babynames dot com or something mr fancy shmancy king of spain  
> \- listen i really cannot decide how the Timeline works at the end there. how long has it been since aramis accepted annes first minister offer in that Final Scene? do u know? do i know? does God know? God probably knows, but i'm too tired to ask Him right now, and anyways this isn't the sort of thing u ask God about.  
> \- ..... anyways signs point to the fact that aramis accepted anne's request some time before the End Scene and they already got over the Conversations and the Sorting Out Their Feelings and just really went straight to the Happiness, which i can appreciate  
> \- i really like to think that 3 months after the baby's coronation they decide to get married in secret bc theyre Extra like that -- but ofc, prior to those three months they try to be as DISCRETE AS POSSIBLE w their affections bc they're trying to Do Things Right This Time (losers) so idk??? have they kissed much before that Ending Scene Kiss??? sources are conflicting in their accounts (WHAT SOURCES I RLY COULDNT TELL U IM MAKING THIS ALL UP AS I GO)  
> \- they've hugged tho. they've hugged for a solid half hour that's Real it was to make up for seven years of lost Embraces. that's really real u guys  
> \- CANT BELIEVE TRU LOV ALWAYS WINS!!!!!!!!!!!!  
> \- title is from the song from the end credits of the mask of zorro, aka thE SECOND MOST ROMANTIC SONG OF MY CHILDHOOD,  
> \- and lastly this is in the same 'verse as "hark the bluebells" and "said God", so for context, happiness is a big mood here regardless of timelines  
> \- i hope u enjoyed [peace sign emoji]


End file.
